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Hey

I'm Manik

I'm a user experience engineer, designer, developer and photographer.

What do these things mean?

I work on wireframes & user research.

I work on visual design & aesthetics.

I work on building sites & applications with code.

I take pictures of things.

I was just in Chicago for a year working for the President

And we won.

potus

At Kean:

Started with Graphic Design & Print

Tried Advertising

And Copywriting

And Industrial Design

And Production Design

And Web

At Obama for America:

Redesign of BarackObama.com

Dashboard

Call Tool

Contribute Platform - Online Donations

So what's the point?

I graduated from Robert Busch School of Design in 2011.

6 months later I was working for the President of the United States.

I got there because I followed a few really basic principles.

Focus on the industry. Pay attention to new technologies and new techniques

Focus on your surroundings

You are surrounded by peers that can drive your creativity & talent.

Get critiques, work together and learn together.

The more you work & compete with each other, the faster you will improve

Focus on your options

It is a wonderful time to be a designer - the internet has endless free ways for you to learn more and advance your craft

If you are focused on Development and Web Design, you can use Codecademy

If you are interested in interaction design, you can use Treehouse

Graphic design? You The Designer & more

Your options are endless - get a BFA in Advertising but learn about other fields on your own

Side projects can land you your dream job.

Blogging & Writing

I used my blog as an experiment lab.

Iterate quickly and launch.

Blogging is an amazing tool.

At the campaign, I was helping build the contribution platform for millions of people to use.

This got a lot of publicity because it was a record destroying streak for a political campaign.

We raised 250 million dollars online with design & code.

This platform was built on an open source technology called Jekyll.

This was my first time using Jekyll and this project would be seen and used by millions of people.

Here is where side projects come into play:

Blog

Don't shrug off social

Twitter, App.net, Google+ and all of these services are very powerful.

These services put your design heroes & idols within an arm's reach

Are you a fan of Jessica Hische?

Message her and get a coffee. ( @jessicahische )

Want to work at BigSpaceship?

Get in touch with some team leads & put your work out there

Start building your websiteIt is incredibly useful.

My portfolio got me a job 8 months before I graduated

It can do the same for you.

And if you aren't interested in web design, you can still make a website easily.

Work. Hard.You can't learn new things without busting your ass and working on them.

Really hard.seriously. do it. working on school assignments isn't enough.

work hard
work hard
work hard
work hard
work hard

Attending class and doing homework isn't enough

Freelance

Use Lab Hours

Make real use of your professors

Thanks

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